Accelerated by Heppner Vaughn

Author:Heppner, Vaughn [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 2013-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

-13-

“I’m wasting my time at the airport,” Blake said.

We sat on the Alamo as the sun sank into the ocean. Beautiful orange rays spread across the sky and water. Blake had been telling me about his day at the airport, and that he had been unable to discover where Kay’s body had landed.

“She’s vanished,” he said.

“She can’t have vanished,” I said.

“Do you think they altered her with injections?”

I’d told Blake about my adventure at Polarity Magnetics. Several things stood out for both of us. Rita had kept hold of the neural whip after I’d struck her wrist. That implied greater strength and harder bones than she should have. On my boat, Kay had spoken about possessing new abilities and Stone said she had received injections just like Rita.

“Why hide the body?” I asked.

“The obvious reason is because they don’t want anybody to see it,” Blake said.

I nodded in agreement.

“What kind of injections do you think they received?” Blake asked.

“Let’s start with what makes people stronger.”

“Steroids and testosterone shots,” he said.

“It’s something else,” I said, “something new. Something somebody could tell by looking at a corpse.”

“Or by doing an autopsy,” Blake said.

I stared at the ocean scenery, thinking about everything I’d learned. Doctor Harris was independent of Polarity Magnetics. According to Kay, he had found out where I lived. Cheng feared Dave waking up but not the Shop prowling around Long Beach. Cheng could tell, apparently, when someone was lying. I was not the one, whatever that meant. The Chief didn’t want me anywhere near his investigation. And men with tattoos had tried to inject me and had invaded my boat in San Francisco.

That injection, the blue solution, was it the same substance put into Rita and Kay? If so, it would imply that Polarity Magnetics had sent the men. Neither Stone nor Rita had sported tattoos, however. But I didn’t know if that was significant or not.

“I’m going to lie down,” I said.

“It’s pretty early still,” Blake said.

“My head is hurting, a byproduct of the neural whip, I think.”

“Do you want me to speak to the laundry truck driver tomorrow?”

“I’ll do that,” I said. “You keep poking around the airport, or wherever you have to in order to find out where the body went.”

“Okay,” Blake said glumly.

I left him staring at the ocean as I headed for my tiny shower stall near my cabin. I let the shower’s needle spray cleanse me of sweat and then heat my head. After a time, it made the dull throb go away.

I munched on a bag of Doritos in bed and despite the early hour found myself yawning. I stretched out, fell asleep and woke around eleven at night. The red numbers of my clock said 11:12.

Something had disturbed my sleep. I rubbed my face and realized I’d thought someone had called my name. That had been happening more often in my sleep. It was a strange feeling. I’d wake up and feel I knew what someone had been saying about me, that somewhere nearby people were talking about me.

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